Garrett

by Linda Lael Miller

  Julie kept pace, meeting him stroke for stroke, thrust for thrust.

  The climb was a sacred quest, every new level intensified the pleasure.

  Their bodies flirted, then danced, then slammed into each other, fierce in their need for union, for the deepest kind of contact, for satisfaction.

  When the climax came, it was simultaneous. Garrett tensed on top of Julie, with a guttural shout, a warrior’s cry of conquest and triumph. Julie, in turn, flung herself upward to meet him, to take him deep inside her, to clench around him and wring from him everything he had to give to her, and then still more.

  That first, apocalyptic release was followed by a series of progressively smaller ones, soul-wrenching and utterly involuntary.

  When it was over, a long, long time had passed, and Garrett and Julie lay still, exhausted.

  Julie was glad of the darkness, because suddenly her eyes were awash in tears—not of sorrow and certainly not of regret, but of wonderment and awe. When had she last felt those things, soared like that?

  Never, that was when.

  The thought jolted Julie; she sneaked up a hand to dry her cheek. And she began to rationalize.

  She’d responded in the soul-shattering way she had because it had been so long since she’d had sex, that was all.

  It wasn’t Garrett, she insisted to herself. Any reasonably skilled man could have satisfied her just as thoroughly as he had.

  Probably.

  Garrett lay sprawled beside her, where he’d fallen, one leg draped across her thighs. When he moved to switch on the lamp, his upper arm brushed against the side of her face, and he felt the moisture on her skin.

  He looked solemn as he gazed down at her. “Are you—? Did I—?”

  She smiled, touched his beard-bristled cheek, ran the pad of her thumb over that sensuous mouth of his. And she shook her head. “I’m all right, Garrett,” she said.

  He leaned over her, kissed her right cheekbone, and then her left. “Stay there,” he told her.

  He got off the bed, and Julie heard a rustling sound. Though she couldn’t bring herself to look at him, she knew he was pulling on his jeans.

  As soon as he’d left the room, Julie got up and scrambled for the master bathroom.

  When Garrett returned, though, she was back in bed, wearing her shirt and her jeans, the covers pulled up to her chin in a way that was, once she had time to think about it, pretty ridiculous.

  Garrett, carrying a plate piled with Esperanza’s stuffed mushrooms, chuckled when he saw her. Then he maneuvered until he was sitting beside Julie, his back to the pillows fluffed between him and the headboard, and offered her a morsel.

  She hesitated, feeling self-conscious, and then her stomach rumbled.

  Garrett laughed, touching the mushroom to her mouth.

  Julie took it. Chewed for a long time, finally swallowed.

  “I turned the oven back on,” Garrett said. “How long do you think it will take for the spaghetti to finish cooking?”

  Now it was Julie who laughed, though more with relief than because anything was funny. She didn’t know what she’d expected from Garrett—regret? Dismissal, or even contempt?

  It hadn’t been a perfectly ordinary question about dinner, that was for sure.

  “Maybe fifteen minutes,” she said, feeling incredibly awkward, fully clothed and hiding everything but her head under the covers.

  Garrett smiled, tossed a mushroom into his mouth and offered Julie another one. When she shook her head, he set the plate aside on the bedside table.

  Then he slid an arm under Julie’s back and eased her against his side.

  His chest was bare, lightly dusted with hair the color of brown sugar.

  Julie wanted to place her palm in the center of his taut belly, spread her fingers wide, but she refrained. Contented herself with resting her head on his shoulder.

  “So why were you crying?” he asked, very quietly and after a long time.

  Julie sighed. “Because it was so good,” she admitted.

  He chuckled, a low and entirely masculine sound that struck some tender places hidden away in Julie’s heart. Whatever else he might be—an expert at spin, Blue River, Texas’s, favorite son—Garrett was a cowboy, too.

  The real deal, born and bred on the Silver Spur Ranch.

  Raised to be all man and yet capable of a degree of tenderness, at least while making love, that made Julie marvel just to recall it.

  She was glad when the timer dinged out in the kitchen, because she was just about to cry again. Instead, she leaped out of bed as eagerly as if supper came around once a month instead of every day.

  Garrett stayed behind in his room long enough to pull a T-shirt on over his head. It was plain, with a hole in one side seam, but clean.

  They ate sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of Garrett’s fireplace, Harry snoozing nearby and opening one eye every now and then, probably hoping for a scrap.

  “Damn,” Garrett said, with an appreciative grin. “You can cook.”

  Julie’s cheeks ached with heat as she stared down at her plate. “Thanks.”

  A companionable silence ensued. Garrett picked up his wineglass, which he’d set on the coffee table earlier, and took a sip, but Julie was off the sauce, at least for the evening.

  Why was it so easy to fall into this man’s bed, and so hard to talk to him afterward?

  “Hey,” he said, when he’d taken both their plates to the kitchen and returned to sit on the rug again, facing her. “Are you ever going to look at me?”

  Julie blinked, made herself meet Garrett’s eyes. She was acting silly, she knew that, but she couldn’t seem to figure out how to stop.

  “You’re a woman,” Garrett said, holding her gaze, the firelight flickering over the strong angles of his face, the powerful set of his shoulders, “and I’m a man. What just happened between us—happened. And that’s okay, Julie. It’s a lot better than okay, in fact.”

  “I don’t usually—” She paused, miserably embarrassed. Where was the old, confident, sensual Julie? “I mean, you must think—”

  Garrett cupped his hand under her chin, and her skin tingled where the tips of his fingers touched. “I think,” he told her firmly, though his voice was gruff, “that you are one hell of a woman, and I’m one lucky son of a gun to be spending an evening with you.”

  An evening. He was lucky to spend an evening with her.

  Well, what had she expected?

  A lifetime commitment, an avowal of undying love?

  After one roll in the hay?

  “It was good,” she admitted, wondering when she’d be able to shake off the strange shyness possessing her now.

  “Ya think?” Garrett teased, raising one eyebrow slightly.

  Julie laughed, and just like that, the tension was broken, the shyness gone. Still, a part of her wanted to ask, Now what?

  More sex?

  More wine?

  More chicken spaghetti?

  Was this a fling, or an affair, or just a one-night stand?

  And what was the difference between a fling and an affair?

  Julie sighed and pressed her fingers to her temples. And she blurted it right out.

  “Now what?”

  Garrett scooted forward, so their knees touched. Then their foreheads.

  “Now,” he ventured, “we take a shower together and make love again?”

  “You can’t possibly be serious,” Julie said.

  Garrett tugged her T-shirt up until her breasts were uncovered. She’d forgotten to put her bra back on.

  “Hot damn,” he said, admiring her for a long, delicious moment before he ducked his head and took her nipple into his mouth. He suckled until she moaned, then turned and thoroughly attended to her other breast before meeting her eyes again. “Still think I’m not serious?” he asked, lifting the T-shirt off over her head and arms and tossing it away. “If you need more convincing, I’ll be happy to oblige.”

  She felt beautif
ul, powerful, even slightly dangerous, like some nomadic princess about to enjoy a captive lover, sitting there on Garrett’s floor, with their knees and shins touching, and her naked breasts bathed in the dancing light of his fire.

  Mischief widened her eyes and made her smile saucy. “You know,” she said, “I’m just not sure—I think I might actually need some convincing.”

  He laughed and eased her backward onto the floor, then luxuriated in her breasts, kissing them, caressing them, weighing them in his hands. “Then maybe,” he said, after making a slow circle around each of her nipples with the tip of his tongue, “I’d better have you again, right here and right now, while I’ve got you on your back.”

  “That was such a sexist thing to say,” she gasped.

  He was kissing her belly, working the snap on her jeans, and then the zipper. “You’re not on your back?” he teased, his voice sleepy and slow.

  “You know what I mean,” Julie whimpered, as he slid down her jeans. She’d forgotten her panties, too, she realized, not just her bra.

  “Ummmm,” he murmured.

  And then he made Julie call out his name, not once, not twice, but half a dozen times before he finally took her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JULIE LAY PERFECTLY STILL, her eyes closed, reorienting herself. It was a slow process, grasping at wispy fragments of consciousness, trying to fit them into some sensible pattern.

  She wasn’t in her usual bed—which wasn’t her usual bed, either, to be perfectly accurate—the directions and the angles were all wrong.

  And then it all fell into place, and Julie sucked in a sharp breath.

  Oh, God. She’d had sex with Garrett McKettrick—crazy, sweaty, unbridled, consequences?—what consequences?—sex.

  Now, the proverbial chickens had come home to roost. It was time to pay the piper, face the music.

  Welcome to the dreaded Morning After.

  The mattress shifted. “Open your eyes,” Garrett drawled. He smelled of soap and aftershave, and his breath was minty.

  Julie was fairly certain hers wasn’t.

  He knew she was awake—there was no point in trying to fake it so he’d go away and leave her alone long enough to get her act together.

  Not that she had any idea how to go about doing that, at the present moment, at least.

  “Julie?”

  She opened her eyes. Wide.

  Garrett was so close that their noses were almost touching.

  “Mornin’,” he said, one corner of his mouth crooking upward in a teasing grin.

  “Mmmm,” Julie said, with a nod, clasping one hand over her mouth. “Breath,” she explained, through her fingers.

  Garrett chuckled, shook his head once, and placed a brief, smacking kiss on her forehead before rolling off the bed and landing on his feet with that grace peculiar to people who’ve spent a lot of time on horses, cowboys in particular.

  He was wearing jeans and nothing else.

  Tossing her a blue cotton bathrobe, heretofore draped over the back of a leather-upholstered wingback chair, he said, “Coffee’s almost ready.”

  The moment he left the room, Julie pulled the robe under the covers, wriggled herself into it, and even tied the belt before throwing back the blankets to rise.

  Given that the horse was already out of the barn, she thought ruefully, it was a little late to be closing the barn door.

  Garrett’s bathroom was large, and there was travertine tile everywhere—on the walls and the floor and the long counter with two bronze sinks set into it. The matching faucets, beautifully cast, were shaped like horses’ heads, and although Julie quickly found a new toothbrush and toothpaste in a drawer, it took her a while to figure out how to turn on the water.

  Once she’d accomplished that, she scrubbed her teeth with a fury.

  A sound startled her—a masculine rap of knuckles on wood.

  Julie went to the door, opened it an inch and peeked out.

  Garrett was standing there, holding a neat stack of folded clothing. Jeans. A lightweight gray sweatshirt. Socks and even underwear.

  Julie recognized the garments—vaguely—as her own things.

  He chuckled, noting her reluctance to open up.

  This was, after all, his bathroom. And it wasn’t as if she had anything he hadn’t already seen. She was behaving like an idiot, and she couldn’t seem to help it.

  “Don’t you want to get dressed?” he asked.

  Julie flushed, nodded, opened the door just far enough to reach out and grab her clothing. Where had he gotten these things?

  Garrett must have seen the question in her face, because he answered it.

  “I told Esperanza you needed something to wear,” he said, “and she fetched this stuff from the laundry room.”

  Julie’s eyes widened. “You told Esperanza…?”

  “Oops?” Garrett inquired. There was a distinct twinkle in his eyes.

  Julie made a growling sound of frustration, and he laughed, and she shut the door in his face and turned the lock for good measure.

  “I was kidding,” Garrett called through the closed door. “I found your gear in a basket in the laundry room. Esperanza’s not around—she always goes to church on Sundays.”

  Julie rested her forehead against the panel, smiling a little. “Okay,” she replied, after letting out a long breath. “Thanks.”

  But she didn’t unlock the door.

  She used Garrett’s fancy shower—the one they’d shared the night before—between making love on the living room floor and making love again in bed.

  Julie’s knees weakened a little as she took off the borrowed robe, stepped into the shower, adjusted the spigots. She tried not to think of the things she and Garrett had done in that steamy cubicle, but of course that would have been impossible.

  She washed quickly, trying not to get her hair wet, used a monogrammed bath sheet to dry off, and hastily pulled on the clean clothes Garrett had rustled up for her.

  She finger-combed her hair—fortunately, it hadn’t frizzed overmuch—tidied up the bathroom and unlocked the door.

  Julie found Garrett in the kitchen, scrambling eggs on the stovetop set into the island.

  He was wearing a blue chambray shirt and boots now, along with the jeans.

  “You look like a man about to swing up into the saddle and strike out for other parts,” Julie remarked, willing herself not to blush again.

  And she didn’t.

  Two thick slabs of bread popped out of the toaster, and Garrett slid the skillet of eggs off the burner before deftly buttering the slices.

  Harry, Julie noted, was eating kibble out of a bowl in a corner.

  Fresh clothes for her, dog food for the beagle. Garrett, it seemed, had thought of everything.

  “Tate called a little while ago,” he said, in belated answer, plopping the eggs and the toast onto two plates and carrying them to the breakfast bar. “We’ve been having some trouble with rustlers lately and he wants to make a few passes over some of the canyons in my plane—see if we can spot anything.”

  A little niggle of dread curled in Julie’s stomach, like smoke.

  We’ve been having some trouble with rustlers lately…

  Rustlers were criminals.

  Criminals tended to be dangerous.

  And although Tate and Garrett probably thought they were invincible, since they were rock-ribbed McKettricks, they could be hurt, like anyone else.

  “Shouldn’t the police handle things like this?” she asked, in a cracked-china voice.

  Garrett, perched on the stool next to Julie’s, sat with his fork suspended in one hand, watching her as though she represented a dozen delightful curiosities to be puzzled out, one by one. “Tate’s been keeping Brent Brogan up to speed,” he said, his tone as thoughtful as his expression. “Brent’s just one man, though, and the Silver Spur is our worry—Tate’s and Austin’s and mine—not his.”

  Julie’s jaw tightened. She relaxed her face by force of will
. “This isn’t the Old West, Garrett,” she reasoned. “You and your brothers don’t have to stand against these—these cattle thieves, all by yourselves.”

  There it was again, that registered-weapon of a grin. Garrett narrowed his true-blue eyes slightly as he studied her. “Why, ma’am,” he joked, heavy on the Texas twang and the schlock, “are you frettin’ your pretty little head over a ring-tailed polecat like me?”

  She laughed, though reluctantly, and moved one hand a little, as if to swat at him. “Stop it,” she said. “This is serious. What if someone gets hurt?”

  Something tender moved in his eyes. “It happens,” he said quietly. Maybe, like Julie, he was thinking of Pablo Ruiz, the longtime ranch foreman and a close friend of the McKettricks. Pablo, a good man and a much beloved member of the community, had been killed a few months before, trying to unload a half-wild stallion from a horse trailer.

  “Yes,” Julie agreed, “it happens.”

  I don’t want it to happen to Libby’s future bridegroom, the man she loves, body, mind and soul.

  I don’t want it to happen to you, Garrett McKettrick.

  The silence stretched between them, drawn taut, about to spring back on itself.

  “We’ll be careful,” Garrett said.

  Julie pushed her plate away—the eggs weren’t bad, but she’d lost her appetite—and looked down at her hands, knotted together in her lap. Yes, she’d spent the night with Garrett, and to say they’d been intimate would have been the understatement of the century.

  But the reality was, she had no claim on Garrett, no say in how he ran his life. If he wanted to put himself in danger, to play hero instead of calling in the authorities to deal with the rustlers, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

  She didn’t have to like it, though.

  And she couldn’t seem to shut up.

  “Just remember,” she said, tearing up a little, “that Tate has children. Audrey and Ava need him. And my sister, my sister, loves that man with everything she has and everything she is. If anything happened to him—”

  “I haven’t forgotten the twins, Julie. They’re my nieces and I love them.” Garrett’s eyes were solemn, his hand strong when he laid it over Julie’s. Only when his fingers squeezed hers did she realize she’d been shaking. “I know what Tate means to Libby,” he went on, his voice husky, “and what she means to him. Trust me when I tell you that I’ll watch his back.”